AMNC24: What you need to know about AI & entrepreneurship
One of six key pillars of AMNC24 is 'Entrepreneurship in the Age of AI'. Image: Photo by Stefan Cosma on Unsplash
- Leaders from business, government, civil society, and international organizations will gather in Dalian, People's Republic of China, from 25 to 27 June for the Annual Meeting of the New Champions (AMNC24).
- One of six key pillars of the meeting is 'Entrepreneurship in the Age of AI'.
- Follow live coverage and curated insights from the meeting.
Generative AI has the potential to reshape and improve industries in the coming years.
Entrepreneurs, including the latest cohort of World Economic Forum Tech Pioneers, are pioneering its use - and attracting investment - while the Forum continues to work on the impact of emerging technologies, from governance to opportunities.
Leaders and entrepreneurs from across the Innovator, Tech Pioneer and UpLink communities will attend the Annual Meeting of the New Champions to explore and showcase the role of innovation and collaboration in creating new models of sustainable economic growth.
AMNC24 Key sessions
All times are CST (GMT+8)
25 June
Local innovation plays a crucial role in addressing societal challenges. In this session, Paula Ingabire, Rwanda's Minister of Information Communication Technology and Innovation joined Anil Gupta, Michael Dingman Chair in Strategy, Globalization and Entrepreneurship, University of Maryland to explore what's possible when these local systems come together to drive progress.
Watch the full session below.
AI agents, powered by rapid advances in large language and multi-modal models, are slowly emerging. But, how will they be applied and what are the potential implications?
Xi Kang, Assistant Professor, Owen Graduate School of Management, Vanderbilt University, joined Nancy Xu, CEO, Moonhub; Liu Jiren, Chairman, Neusoft and Darko Matovski, Founder and CEO, causaLens, to discuss.
Kang said: "What we are developing and still working with right now is 'artificial narrow intelligence' or 'weak AI', meaning that they are good at performing certain tasks if they are well defined, whether it be, predicting a fraudulent transaction in a finance setting or generating natural language. Those still fall into the category of artificial narrow intelligence."
"We're going to end up in a world where 99% of all intelligence is artificial and the 1%, the human intelligence, will act as a backstop to the 99% of artificial intelligence," said Matovski.
"Now, we're not there yet, and we're not ready for that world, but that's the world we are embarking to create. In that world, we will need to choose, depending on a use case where is the line between autonomy and control? Where does the 1% of the human intelligence need to dedicate their time?"
He added that decision-making today is based on "human gut feel", and that even the most advanced organizations have a very small number of real-world use cases of AI when it comes to decision-making.
"So there's this tremendous opportunity to use AI agents and more advanced forms of AI, as we develop them to transform completely how we make decisions in our society, which will lead to more equitable, more efficient, better societies.
He explained the difference between causal AI and LLMs: "We want an AI that can understand the cause and effect relationships in the real world like we do, like like humans...
"To the user, it will look like they're using an LLM. But in reality, it will be grounded to a causal understanding of the world. And we believe that this is really the breakthrough technology that will unlock most of the use cases in enterprise and in policy decision-making."
Xu explained some of the tasks that AI agents would be able to do and said in the next 5 to 10 years, we will reckon with the question of what is actually uniquely human labour and what is actually something that AI can do:
"I think about it as a sort of combination of silicon talent or AI agents and biological talent, which is what humans can do. And creating that synergy between the two."
She added: "In a world where talent is traditionally the bottleneck for growth, I think the really exciting opportunity for AI agents is actually to compress the time scale that it takes to build ideas or companies to impact and make it possible to do that in a much more compressed time frame."
AI offers new potential to boost productivity, with benefits for global growth - but this could come at the risk of displacing workers. So, can AI-powered productivity growth provide the boost that's needed?
Paula Ingabire, Rwanda's Minister of Information Communication Technology and Innovation, joins Liew Chin Tong, Deputy Minister, Ministry of International Trade and Industry of Malaysia; Gilles Leclerc, President, Greater China and Mongolia Operating Unit, Coca-Cola and Andre Hoffmann, Vice Chairman, Roche Holding.
Catch up on the full session here.
26 June
The implementation of the ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement could unlock an additional $1 trillion-$2 trillion for the region by 2030.
Van Dinh Hong Vu, CEO, ELSA, joined Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno, Indonesia's Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy; Neeraj Aggarwal, Regional Chair, Asia-Pacific, Boston Consulting Group, Ivan John E. Uy, Secretary of Information and Communications Technology, Department of Information and Communications Technology of the Philippines and Dalad Tantiprasongchai
Chief Operating Officer and Chief International Business Officer, SCB X, to discuss how countries in the region work together to realize this potential.
Uy said the challenge for the 10 ASEAN countries was that digitalization had been siloed: "The challenge is... being able to collaborate, being able to connect and to share that information across the different platforms and across the different countries. And we can do this today because the technology allows it."
Countries are unlocking the potential of AI, by exploring how infrastructure, policy and investment interact. But how are different regions adopting policies, ensuring regulation is responsible and future-proof, while encouraging innovation.
Xue Lan, Professor; Dean, Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University, joined John Lombard, CEO, NTT DATA, Inc. Asia Pacific; Erika Kraemer Mbula, Professor of Economics, University of Johannesburg, and Ahmad Al Hanandeh, Jordan's Minister of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship to discuss.
Lombard said two of the biggest challenges with AI were trust, with only 30% of people trusting the technology and energy consumption:
"It’s estimated that to process one of those large data sets, it’s the equivalent of one hour of a nuclear power plant... So you can imagine that growing across the industry and all organizations and governments utilizing this technology.
"It’s going to be a real challenge... We believe we need to be investing in that next wave of technology that drives down the cost of consumption."
Mbula highlighted that access to technology and digital skills gaps as another challenge for countries to overcome: “Mobile penetration has increased a lot in the past decade or so, but there’s still a digital divide. Widespread access to the internet and electricity are still insufficient. And unless we address the digital divide, we are very likely to leave many behind in this AI movement.”
Take a look at the Top 10 Emerging Technologies of 2024 as we explore the impact they might have on lives and livelihoods.
Lee Sang-Yup, Senior Vice-President, Research; Distinguished Professor, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) joins Katherine Daniell, Director, School of Cybernetics, Australian National University.
Catch up on the full session below.
The discovery of the world's first functional graphene semiconductor, along with significant advancements in neuromorphic computing and the release of AI superchips are poised to accelerate computing power.
How are these breakthroughs reshaping the future of industry and what are the latest AI applications?
Warren Jude Fernandez, CEO, Asia-Pacific, Edelman; Vincent Henry Iswaratioso, CEO, DANA; Van Dinh Hong Vu, CEO, ELSA; Samuele Ramadori, CEO, BrainBox AI, and Jay Lee Clark, Distinguished Professor; Director, Industrial AI Center, University of Maryland were on the panel.
Vu Van, whose company created an AI English Language Speech Assistant said the efficiency of AI means it can enable powerful "hyper-personalization of learning" which "allows for better student engagement, better learning outcomes".
Fernandez said the challenge for every communications organization would be "to grapple with is this amazing paradox that with AI, you will have the ability to generate an infinite amount of content very quickly at very low cost."
But "as AI goes up, trust goes down... We may have infinite content, but we all do not have infinite attention, infinite time to engage. So we will be looking for a sense of who do we trust, who can I rely on to give me good, credible, reliable information? I think that's the next big challenge."
Catch up on the full session in the X thread below.
As biotechnology evolves, how can leaders build policies that encourage it to scale? From 3D printing of human organs to clean wastewater, it's already demonstrated its potential.
Nenad Paunović, Advisor, Office of the Speaker of the National Assembly, joined Hanadie Yousef, Founder and CEO, Juvena Therapeutics; Cheryl Cui, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Bota Biosciences and Andrew D. Maynard, Professor, School for the Future of Innovation in Society, Arizona State University.
Catch up on the full session below.
27 June
With interest in emerging technologies, like AI to quantum computing, shifts from investment to application, how will they drive productivity and growth gains?
Zhu Min, Vice-Chairman, China Center for International Economic Exchanges (CCIEE) joined Uljan Sharka, CEO, iGenius; Sir Robin Niblett, Distinguished Fellow, Chatham House; Nancy Xu, CEO, Moonhub, and Melissa C. Lott, Professor, Climate School, Columbia University.
Catch up on the full session below.
How is the World Economic Forum creating guardrails for Artificial Intelligence?
Pre-reads, publications and Forum insights
AI Governance Alliance: Briefing Paper Series: How can we ensure that AI is used responsibly? These papers explore AI's challenges and opportunities.
Space: The $1.8 Trillion Opportunity for Global Economic Growth: Space technologies have the potential to tackle pressing business and societal challenges. Learn more about the opportunities available to the global economy.
AI for Impact: The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Social Innovation: For social innovators, ethical adoption of AI has the potential to maximise their impact. Read more in our white paper about how those working in the space can better understand, access and deploy the technology.
